Earlier this month, we were honored to be speaking to Dr Helen Riess about the important concept of empathy for healthcare providers (See her TED talk here). Dr. Riess is Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Empathetics. She is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her research on empathy and the neuroscience of emotions has been published in peer reviewed journals, and she is a core member of……

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I often role-play with nurse clients as I find it is an important teaching tool in exposing the nuances of patient care gaps that aren’t obvious by using traditional methods.   For example, I use this format when reviewing how to convey negative results, where I become the ‘patient’ on the receiving end of the phone call. Last week, during a client coaching session, my ‘nurse’ told me about my negative……

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You might notice that some people seem to be able to maintain a healthy weight effortlessly while others really struggle. Maybe you personally fall into one of these two groups and it’s difficult for you to relate to the other.   However, gaining an understanding of the reasons why people struggle to lose weight can help give you a better perspective when working with overweight or obese patients.   Traditionally, we……

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Dear Wonder Woman, You are beautiful and you are not just a sum of your (sometimes seemingly faulty) parts. Because that doesn’t take into account your spirit and grit as you proceed on this path. This journey, although tortuous at times, will make you stronger, even if you don’t see it right now. We will go through it together. I can’t possibly imagine how you feel, but I do know that……

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October is baby loss and miscarriage awareness month, so I thought I’d share a story with you about how I have been affected by this, both personally and professionally. At 10 weeks, during my second pregnancy, I was told that my baby’s heartbeat stopped. Of course I was devastated, except that I did have a little nagging intuition that something ‘wasn’t quite right’ with this pregnancy which I had been hoping……

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  Fertility meds don’t actually come in a nutshell. They come in the form of a pill or injections, depending on the type of medication. I’m going to address oral medications first, since they are usually the first step for those proceeding with fertility treatments. There are two different oral medications prescribed for fertility treatment in the United States: clomiphene citrate (Clomid) and letrozole (Femara). Although they work in different ways,……

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I’ve had the opportunity over the years to work in a few different fertility clinics, all sizes and in many regions. I’ve also, as a consultant, have been privy the inner-workings of many others and have come to the conclusion that the following factors are important for staff and patient satisfaction at a Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI) center. Of course, pregnancy rates are important (and can be researched on the……

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